Happy Camper

From Lost Games Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
Happy Camper
Hc title.png
Platform Nintendo Entertainment System
Developer Color Dreams
Publisher Color Dreams
Planned Release Date USA 1990

Happy Camper is an unlicensed platform that was planned for release for NES. In October 2008, a collector named NationalGameDepot discovered prototypes from Color Dreams memorabilia and development materials. He dumped the game and released it through Retrozone and NintendoAge.[1][2]
Jon Valesh, who once programmed Happy Camper at Color Dreams, talked about the development background in the Digital Press Collector's Guide.
“It was very um …Camp… I guess you’d say. It actually started out life sort of poking fun at the environmentalist/camping scene and at the same time trying to blend the Paperboy/California Games/generic skateboard game with an outdoor theme. There was going to be a fishing section where you rowed your boat around and every time you saw some fish, you’d throw some dynamite at them, and so on… Basically just the American RV camper destroying the environment as he entertains himself. Unfortunately, due to some limitations in the development environment in use at the time, it sort of shifted into a shoot’em-up in which the ‘camper’ was fighting space aliens… Similar theme, in some ways, but more conventional. The staff testers at Color Dreams liked it very much, or so they told us, but it turned out to be VERY difficult to play. (Out of the entire staff of Programmers, engineers, etc. Only I and the testers were able to get out of the first level). Some revision was done to make it easier, but by that time CD was swinging seriously to Wisdom Tree and the margin in selling that game was too low to justify it.”[3]

Gallery[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. Lost Levels Retrieved October 25, 2008.
  2. Unseen64 An interview with NationalGameDepot by Unseen64.|Retrieved Junuary 3, 2009.
  3. Lost Levels Retrieved October 25, 2008.